Nintendo Considering "New Business Structure"

Nintendo had 5B cash on hand from back in July. I don't think this is the end of the world though there should be people in Japan really waking up to this kinda news. The world is changing and Nintendo would do well to understand it.

Don't get me wrong, Nintendo makes great games, but they desperately need a new IP that captures their identity.

They could start BY TRYING TO ACTUALLY SELL THE THING instead of just crossing their fingers and hoping their shitty YouTube videos and non-existent word-of-mouth will pull them through. They thought they could coast on the Wii and it blew up in their faces.

And I'm a Wii U developer, too. I put a fuck ton of hours into figuring the box out (and don't get me wrong, I *do* love the system) but man, ffs, I have not seen a single, SINGLE piece of advertising for it in my home country.

PRO TIP: TO SELL SHIT YOU HAVE TO SELL SHIT. Jesus fucking christ.

Nintendos problem has been that they ether dont know they have a a problem or are in denial of their problem.

Sega was in denial of the problem right up until they pulled out of the console wars, so at least Nintendo is realizing they need to fix something a little sooner.

Really? Cause Sega is making so much great games nowadays?

As part of corporate reorganization, Luigi will be fired and replaced with a new Mario brother.

I can see a handheld-only future for Nintendo, no matter whats going on with home consoles, their handhelds always do well.

I think Nintendo's problem is a simple one... they thought they could get away with gimped hardware again. The problem is, this time they don't have an interesting peripheral to draw the casuals in, they all already have a, much better, tablet.

Going from market leader one generation to a joke the next must be infuriating to shareholders.

The Wii U failing is nothing new, the smartphone news I'm not sure how to take. I don't think branching out to third party is going to lead to anything good for Nintendo. Maybe they plan to release a new DS that can be used as a phone and it's as simple as that. Though a kid friendly phone no one will want. I at least hope they have a plan and they aren't really still in the middle of thinking over this next step. I would guess they do already have the plan set in place.

Nintendo last year released more amazing games than any other publisher and it isn't really close. Life is weird.

You know, I've thought about it… and I'd be okay with that.

I think Nintendo's biggest problem is that they have no understanding of what their competition is doing. I think some of the decision makers and hardware developers need to take a closer look at Microsoft and Sony's consoles. Learn how to create an online community that works. Have your games available via E-shop. Make some hardware that can run ported software from third party's that doesn't have to compromise graphics. You can't sell hardware off of Nintendo's reused 1st party titles over and over when they aren't changing the formula up enough.

At first, it sounds like bad news. But then I imagine a scenario where Zelda, Pokémon, and Animal Crossing are multi-platform, and working with other companies' hardware forces Nintendo to get current with their internet usage...

@patrickklepek: I think the people that work at Ninendo as a whole are a lot more skilled at their respective positions than those who work at Sega. They are not known for their quality.

this is an instance where i agree with you in some of what you said in the past patrick, nintendo should cut their losses on WIIU give a new console one more go, and create a handheld/appletv hybrid style console.

@patrickklepek: Sega was a complete trainwreck well before they were chased out of the console market. I don't think Nintendo should necessarily go 3rd party, but they NEED TO ADAPT. They need to stop living inside a vacuum, because we no longer live in an era where people buy 300$ machines for the first-party library. Nintendo need to appeal to 3rd parties, instead of thinking they'll come running to them. Nintendo need to build a functional online infrastructure, because the current state of their network is RIDICULOUS. Nintendo need to make a better argument than ''WE HAVE MARIO, POKEMON AND YOUR GRANDPARENTS PROBABLY KNOW WHAT NINTENDO IS''.

This is Nintendo's own doing.

Their obsession with having unconventional controls as default (instead of how Sony does it) and having a low power envelope along with improving on 1997 CPU technology has been disastrous.

For the same 300€ they could have gotten a slightly bigger box, much better hardware (enough to run PS3 games at 720p high settings at least) and have a slightly bigger power draw (like 70-90w), and probably even have Wii BC with a small dedicated chip. Their priorities are so weird and it only hurts them.

Then we have their sloooooooow Internet business with no migration of previous Wii content through an account, nor availability of their rich back catalog.

Nintendo's best years had a standard console with amazing advanced hardware and great games. You can have both.

@illuminosopher: Dick Grayson was a better Batman than Bruce Wayne. Much like I would expect if Nintendo went the third-party route, their games would be a hell of a lot better than Sega's.

Ouch.

@huser: As a PC dev they have Football Manager and the Total War series doing gangbusters

That's a way better outlook then what I had been reading them at.

Funny to see people say Sega is doing well when all you here about is how crappy their games are, and to hear people say that Sega never really made good games I would like to see if that statement would actually hold up when they were holding their own when Nintendo was at it's peak.

What I'm saying is Nintendo is Batman and Sega is Robin and I will be damned if I'm gonna sit here and have people tell me Batman should be fucking Robin.

"Another price cut is a strong possibility for the Wii U if sales stay sluggish, said Sato, the Toyo Securities analyst. Nintendo has 460 billion yen in cash ($4.4 billion) and is prepared to survive a bad sales year or two, he said."

http://www.komonews.com/news/tech/Holidays-key-test-for-Nintendo-as-Wii-U-struggles-236570471.html

Iwata's headstone.

And all it took was them spreading out their library to the point that very few of their games in the first few years of being third-party were successes, getting bought by a pachinko company, selling off their sports division to Take Two, bleeding the vast majority of the talent that made them successful in the first place, essentially pulling out of North America to run their entire western division out of the UK, restructuring their company to put serious focus on the European PC market... yeah you know what? I'm going with you weren't actually a Sega fan growing up, because otherwise you wouldn't be arguing that the Sega that exists today is in any way shape or form like the Sega that went third-party in 2001.

I'd say that's pretty relevant to this because Nintendo is a lot like that old Sega in having a very unique design philosophy that permeates their games. I'd have more faith in Nintendo to be able to keep that philosophy if they went third-party, but considering the problems that other such companies have had when doing so, you should definitely be afraid of Nintendo going third-party. Be very afraid.

I believe in Assets and Stock Options it just, but I'm pretty sure actual liquid cash is much lower.

Uh, their war chest does contain billions though?

Honestly, I just got the Wii U a couple weeks ago and am having a great time with it. I never had a wii, so I can play that catalog plus the 4 or 5 games that interest me on the wii U. Honestly, though, I'm not really sure what they need to do to make this console relevant. I don't think SSB is going to make THAT much of a difference and Mario Kart won't light the world on fire. Sony and Microsoft have already carved out their audiences and Nintendo just seems to be the red headed step child that has some incredible platformers, but that's about it.

@patrickklepek: Nintendos' game quality is already starting to reflect the downfall of Sega. Sure there are a few great games coming out of them but overall, its not so hot.

Great point. Nintendo is a much better developer than Sega. I would love to play Super Mario 3D World, I'm confident they made a great game, but I don't think the Wii U is a great console and I'm not going to buy it to play one game. Now if I could play it on a Playstation...

The 3DS is the only good thing Nintendo created in the last 10 years.

The Wii and Wii U sucked.... i don't really feel bad for them, New super mario bros Y'all. WAH WAH , ugh.

@ejiehi: That's quite possibly one of the shittiest pins to ever exist, brought to you by the same people who made the abysmal Shaq Attack.

But do we really want that? Sega are just another publishing house at this point, sitting on classic ips while cranking out crappy Sonic games every year instead of putting money into games people actually want.

In hindsight, giving Luigi his own year was a mistake.

Nintendo is and has been a weird company in a weird position since the N64 really, but especially so after the GameCube. The only way I can see them changing drastically would be either so much more success in a different approach or a dry coffer.

Now this isn't to say that Nintendo is doing great either. In fact, some have pointed out what I consider is their worst problem, their stangant audience. It seems that who they're selling to, and what their cultural cache means these days, is legacy and long time fans. This works for hard core strategy developers and niche publishers but for a company like Nintendo they can't afford to stay in one place with the "hardcore" which isn't even all that interested like they used to be. What I think this means is mobile is the future for Nintendo, and not just phones but possibly an even bigger focus in the portable game market as well.

I think the biggest change we'll see out of Nintendo in the near future is a potential shift away from developing a new console. Personally, with the direction that computing and content consumption is going, a new console doesn't sound like something any company would be investing in as a sure bet so it's more likely than ever that the Wii U is the last traditional game console out of Nintendo.

@blacklagoon: Going from an international hardware manufacturer and software developer to primarily a publisher for the smallest of the three major gaming markets is a pretty significant dip in the profile of a company.

If Nintendo's War Chest had billions, then I would agree with you. But to a company that large, hundreds of millions isn't as much as it seems. You have to look at Net Cash on Hand, not just Assets. It's pretty easy to cook through a hundred million faster then most think. Especially posting losses like that. I'm not trying to be super doom and gloom, but with a steady stock sell-off, and a massive dip today, ready cash dries up faster as investors pull out.

The 3DS has been my favourite gaming platform of the past year. Loved a bunch of games and put many hours into it while sitting infront of a number of regular consoles & PC. If nintendo were to restructure and put more emphasis on high quality 3DS titles I would be very happy.

The WiiU is a bust. Nobody sells them, the section in my local GAME store in the UK has more space dedicated to 10 year old PC games about barbies, horses and the sims than it does to WiiU. It has a terrible name, and costs way too much money to boot.

At this point the only thing that could sway me would be if they sorted out the "play your big screen games on the controller screen" by upgrading the wireless range and resolution.

@specialkiz13: I completely agree with you abought Nintendo's horrible digital ownership shenanigans, but as someone who just spoke with Nintendo very recently about this, while complaining to their customer service about that very problem, I learned that Nintendo actually has the records of the eShop purchases you made, saved in association with the device's serial number on their end. So if you replace your DS and call support, they can probably move the purchases to the new device. It's even easier if you send the device in for repair (which is probably cheaper than buying a new one). But yeah, it's so stupid that those are your options.

It didn't work out for Sega because they don't make good games and they never really have, except perhaps for a brief moment on the Genesis. I stopped caring about Nintendo's games a long time ago, but most people are still happy with the software.

I think people are way to dramatic about Nintendo's current situation. Yeah, the results were not good but coming off Wii and DS of course their predictions would be high. The 3DS is doing really well all things considered, the current situation of the Wii U just overshadows that. Nintendo will not go third party, not for a long time, they have so much money in their vault that they could go through years of commercial decline without being in trouble. Look at the 3DS, it started out terribly and doom was spelled out for it as well. Why wouldn't the Wii U be able to do the same? Surely if Nintendo stays dedicated and keeps releasing good games eventually it will pick up? Smash Bros, Mario Kart and Zelda are all big enough to push systems. I am kinda excited about the situation, as a Wii U AND 3DS owner, it might force Nintendo to try something completely new which I am all for. Despite being very satisfied with both systems.

I would be more worried about Sony, yeah the PS4 had a fantastic start but where are the games? Most are so far off so I wouldn't be surprised if that console starts falling off in terms of sales dramatically.

I give Nintendo all the props in the world for still not having a F2P Mario game on the App Store rife with disgusting micro transactions. They're a sometimes misguided company, but at the very least they haven't resorted to the gross shit that most IP holders in their position would.

@patrickklepek said:

I guess all you see is their reduced western presence, but in Japan Sega is actually doing quite well. Phantasy Star Online 2 has several million users and is very profitable, and they've got other successful franchises like Hatsune Miku and Yakuza. They're hardly some kind of failed and impoverished publisher if that's what you're imagining - they did have the cash make the winning bid on a debt laden Atlus after all.

I feel like panic buying a WiiU to raid the virtual console while I'm sure it still exists.

I'm happy to see they are going to consider a different business direction. After posting that 250 million loss, their stocks dropped around 22% for the week. Nintendo has been on a steady decline for the past two weeks in trading and I was wondering if the stock was going to be labeled "risky."

EDIT: I should also mention that big companies post losses all the time, but it's not really to big a deal, more often it's "we just didn't make as much money as we thought." But this, this is a real loss.

I would buy the hell out of their consoles if it didn't mean missing out on most AAA titles.

I hope the WiiU finds better support. It seems to me right now that the WiiU is just a black hole for Nintendo that just sucks up more money than the 3DS can print out. Problem is they can't just drop support for that thing, and the software they are putting out, though pretty good, isn't enough to move millions of units. It puts them in a weird situation in terms of what to do about it. I guess looking into smart device development might help them feed that black hole some more.

This is super scary, but can be really exciting. I was surprised to see such a disconnect with what they were doing, and what consumers wanted.